Britain Drops Probe
Of Shell Ex-Officials
On Overstatements

LONDON -- Britain's financial watchdog dropped its investigation of two former senior executives at Royal Dutch Shell PLC related to the oil giant's overstatement of energy reserves last year.

The Financial Services Authority, or FSA, had been probing for more than a year the actions of various individuals at Shell, including Philip Watts, Shell's former chairman, and Walter van de Vijver, the company's former head of exploration and production. In a statement yesterday, the FSA said those probes "have reached a conclusion,...